Shoo, shoo! No more shoes for you

She was cleaning out the shoe closet and neatly organizing all the shoes in it.? There were two things that struck her – first, each cubbyhole could hold one pair of her shoes, but only one each of his shoes.? So his shoes were occupying twice the space that hers were.? Second, she also realized that he had much more shoes than her.? This second realization was very troubling.

Isn’t it in the natural order of things that women should have more shoes than men??? Shouldn’t women have much more dresses and shoes and shouldn’t their closets be bigger than men’s?

She realized she was the victim of grave injustice.? Gender equality had been ruthlessly trampled down, and she hadn’t even noticed.? So she went in search of him.? (What, you thought he would have been nearby, helping her organize his shoes?)

“You have much more shoes than me,” she said in an accusing voice. “Your shoes are completely filling up the closet!”

“Well, you can always buy more shoes for yourself, then”, he said. “Have I ever asked you not to buy shoes? I always want you to buy more shoes.”

“But I don’t need more shoes right now!” she said. “That’s not the point.? I don’t want to buy more shoes. But how can you have so many shoes?? You don’t use half of them anyway.? I never see you wearing most of them.? I am going to donate all the shoes you don’t wear.”

“Come on, there aren’t that many shoes, are they ?”, he said, ever the calm one in a crisis. “There are just my four pairs of sneakers, 4-5 pairs of black shoes which you’ll agree are absolutely essential, 4 pairs of brown shoes which are also essential, then my golf shoes, my hiking shoes, winter boots and a few others.”

“I am not discussing this.” she said, putting on a stern face.? “Which one do you want me to donate?”

“I need all of them!” he said, picking up his favorite pair.? She wondered if he was going to hug them like a tree-hugger. Save my shoes! “Why don’t you buy more shoes if you want to have more shoes than me?”

“Well, for a start, this organizer does not have enough space for more.? Actually, this closet will not have space for new shoes.”

But he wasn’t listening, he had already turned away.? So she decided to do the next best thing.? She decided that at least, she needed parity in closet space.? So she stacked all his shoes on the floor, and made sure there were equal pairs of his and her shoes in the organizer.? That was fair, what?

Days later she realized that in hindsight, it wasn’t such a good idea.? He now happily leaves all his shoes on the floor, and all her organizing has been a waste of time.? She keeps tripping over his shoes every time she enters the house.

Plus, he buys more shoes now that he has all the space in the floor to fill.

So last weekend, she took the only choice left to her.? She bought more shoes for herself.? And a new organizer.? She still has much less shoes than he does, but she has learnt to make peace with it.

He has, by his own admission, at least 4 + 4 +4 + 1 +1 +1 = 16 pairs of shoes. If, as you claim, his shoes require one compartment of the organizer each, they would require at least 32. In addition, there would be her shoes, however small a number they would be.
The organizer in the picture has 25 sections. I submit that it is a fake organizer and that the real one has been shoved into the background like the little Chinese girl whose teeth were thought to be defective.

Lekhni: No, this IS the real organizer! I swear it’s not like the Chinese girl 😉 Now you know why his shoes were left on the floor! And more organizers were purchased..

I cannot imagine a man having so many pair of shoes. I have 2 – One formal for office and One sneaker.

Lekhni: I suggest that if you are single and ever consider writing a profile of yourself on one of those matrimonial sites, this should be Bullet Point #1 : “I have only 2 pairs of shoes. I believe that men should have very few pairs of shoes.” Believe me, that’s a great selling point 😉

I love shoes! What’s wrong if the men in the house had more shoes?Too much, I say!!

Lekhni: Don’t you see that it’s completely against nature? What will you guys compete in next, I wonder? Beauty products? Haircare products? Will we soon see a Men’s lipstick collection and hair straightener series? 😉

Someone, finally, hit a blow for shuman rights against the tyranny of domesticity!
(I have said this before) Men should roll on the flor scheimfully for being treated like (dare we say it, hush) puppies!

Lekhni: Actually, men haven’t even learnt from those puppies. Real puppies (and dogs) rule over everyone else with just a wag of their tails 😉 People don’t even notice that they are really being ruled by the dogs 🙂

Haaahaha! Love it! 🙂 But I can’t fathom how it was the guy who end up having more shoes! Never heard of such a man. Sure we require our black shoes. And thats just one, (or at the most two, although the guys I know who have two black shoes are the ones too lazy to throw the older one away). Brown shoes? if there’s black anyway, I would have just one brown shoes at the most. Sneakers? Two or three at the most, if I am extremely physically active. And maybe a separate football boots. Thats it. 🙂 But still, it was hilarious to read about such a man!

Somebody once said a man who has more than 5 pairs of shoes at one time can be found only at the Gay Mardi Gras 😀

Lekhni: You need brown shoes for “business casual” occasions, and depending on your workplace, you may need them a lot. If you listen to him, you will find yourself agreeing to the justification for (and the absolute necessity of) every single pair of shoes 😀

I submit that the stereotype that women have more of any possessions than men do needs to be broken and you cast the first blow.

In my observation:

Men have more clothes (t-shirts, shirts and trousers) but because women have more variety and sometimes more volume (dresses, gowns) they are wrongly believed to have more clothes.

Men have more socks than women have knee-highs or tights, because men can rarely wear open-toed shoes after summer.

Men definitely have more handkerchieves and belts.

They also have more ties and often women have none.

They have more cufflinks (and not all can be shared by their girlfriends or wives or sisters although some can be).

They almost always have more outdoor jackets. In general, men have more ‘kit’ type possessions than women and these bear no correlation with actual ‘work’ requiring that kit.

Increasingly my male acquaintances have more face and beauty products than any woman might have. (Joey even advertised a blue lipstick in Japan once for those who remember this sort of stuff)

There is evidence of more gadgets, pens and sunglasses, hats and caps also in men’s wardrobes.

(Note for RamboDoc: Data collected over many years of knowing different kinds of men and worse, thanks to a compulsive organising streak, being exploited for arranging shelves, drawers and hanging spaces in friends’ houses; please feel free to add to data and pursue future research in this area. References available on request)

Lekhni: You should really write a paper on this 😀 I can see you have already done all the research and have the references 😉

I completely agree with you. I guess it’s one of the misconceptions that men throw out, that women have more clothes/ accessories than men. The other one is that women gossip more than men. Not true, and you just have to stand by an office cooler for a few minutes to prove that wrong!

Well, you have done what you resisted on the take on picture taking. That is you have advised. Voluntary declaration of number [shoes] can help even if the picture is not.

Anyway, I have 4 pair of shoes [declaration to your readers], leaving aside the bathroom sleeper & the sandak. Out of them three are sneakers, used respectively for badminton, walking, & woodland trekking. The remaining one is a oxford nosed hush puppy, usually hushed in the cubbyhole. Once in a blue moon I take it out for interviews with my prospective employers.

After 2003, I did not wear any shoe whatsoever, since my lovely hunting boot was stolen from the pushkar lake. Started just this year. Kind of trimming up for the world I was not facing for long.

By the way, really nice one to stop and comment. I have seen men being shoe and sock loving since I lived in flocks for more than ten years now and still counting. If wagging tail can entail me of the pleasures of my prenuptial life during the postnuptial one then I would jump to it, but it’s idyllic to ponder! 😦

This entry came very close to be put in caferati – flash [fiction? or experience?]. 572 words only. Which anyway you could have pruned to fit the limit of 500. I sincerely pray that they will start a NRI section soon. Your feminine take, simply rule, if not overrule the idea that we live in a right authoritarian patriachal society! godspeed!

Hilarious!…though I still can’t believe he really has so many pairs!!!!….:)..though I am always on one pair at a time, I can understand how she might have felt..hahh..my friend once had this habit of collecting footwears whereever we went. Result, all our tours were filled with bags and bags of footwears!..i knew her hubby can never compete with..hheh..reminds me, got to check if she is still fond of that habit!

Lekhni: She would bring back bags and bags of shoes from a trip? That is one interesting lady 🙂